ARE PEOPLE AWARE OF THEIR ATTITUDES TOWARD DESTINATION? UNDERSTANDING THE IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TEST IN TOURISM RESEARCH

This study tests the hypothesis that explicit and implicit measures of attitudes would differentially identify tourist attitudes in the domain of destination study. A total of 89 college students were recruited to complete a self-report survey and implicit association test (IAT). The results reveal that participants' attitudes toward China and England vary depending on the two different types of attitude measures. Specifically, it appears that attitudes toward the two countries are not significantly different by explicit measures but differences of attitudes are salient by IAT. The implications of the IAT results for tourism destination study and its relations to explicit measures of attitudes are discussed.